The Art of Living
Curiosity and the Love of Movement
Written and Photographed by Rick Perez
Tessa Nesis is a dancer, photographer, world traveler, and all around creative spirit. She opens up about using her body to express emotions, how experience influences art, and becoming a better member of the world.
Los Angeles, USA
On a Friday night not too long ago, I moved some furniture around in my living room, making a big open space on one of the walls. This was going to be my makeshift studio for the night. Cleaning up a little bit, I prepared a drink and waited for Tessa Nesis, a multifaceted creator who I was excited photograph.
Coming down from a raucous birthday month, I was pretty exhausted to say the least. As soon as she arrived, with bags full of clothes, I perked up and we immediately started catching up. I wanted to know Tessa’s story: her past, her present, and future as an artist.
I came across Tessa on Instagram. Her photography page, @starcinnabar, was full of colorful and life and I loved the world she created. I asked her to Takeover the Reckless Instagram page one weekend, and through the stories she posted I knew she was a special spirit who had so much to share.
Tessa’s story begins in the suburbs of Chicago, where at the age of 6 she studied Tae Kwon Do. Next to the Tae Kwon Do studio was a dance studio, and she remembers telling her mom that she wanted to be a dancer.
“What attracted you to dance? What did dance give you that Taekwondo couldn’t?” I asked her.
“Dance allowed me more fluid range of motion,” she explains. “I’ve always been very flexible and I would get made fun of by immature boys in class anytime I did the splits.” As a male-dominated sport, Taekwondo felt isolating for Tessa. She wanted to use her flexibility without shame.
“When I started dance, I felt a sense of freedom,” she continues. “I could move my body in any way that felt good and it was encouraged.” Since being in dance class meant she was mostly with other girls, Tessa felt more accepted. “It was liberating as a kid; to be doing movement that was artistic and athletic and involved flexibility, strength, and endurance. Dance invited me in and made me feel like a complete version of myself.”
As Tessa grew and entered high school, she became involved in musical theater and dance companies, evolving in her art and knowing she wanted to pursue this further.
Once she graduated, Tessa moved to Los Angeles, California to attend the University of Southern California and immediately immersed herself in the dance community. Opportunities arose for her to attend Dance Intensives in Italy and Israel, where she was spend her days studying various forms of dance from professional instructors.
While in these countries, Tessa wanted to explore the world beyond the intensives, igniting another love of her life: travel. “When you are traveling, you are constantly on-the-go and seeing things with fresh eyes,” she says. “It’s the state of curiosity and fresh excitement and I love that feeling”.
She compares the movement of travel to the movement of dance. “In Gaga, a movement technique, you are supposed to find new beginnings and let go of attachments and look at things with fresh eyes, discover new movement pathways. That’s what traveling is all about.”
For Tessa, traveling inspires her as a dancer. She draws from her experiences and expresses them through her body, allowing her to be challenged, to grow, to become better than she was before. “Going into the world and looking with fresh eyes is the perfect fuel for dance. You can draw from experiences: you meet someone interesting and now you are incorporating that feeling into your dance. All of the experiences we have as humans are so impactful on the way we perceive the world and the information we learn and bring into our systems,” she says as I’m intently listening, feeling her passion as well. “Living an interesting life and having experiences to draw from, that’s what makes dance interesting. The best dancers are the older and more mature ones who have experienced a lot because it shows - the pain, the joy, the sadness, everything that they have been through - that is exemplified in the body because emotions are stored in the body.”
This love of travel led her to another form of expression: photography. When visiting Mexico City, a friend gave her a film camera to document the trip. Once the film was developed and she saw the results, she was happy and wanted to keep doing it.
Once the pandemic hit and she was forced to cancel her travel plans, Tessa turned to photography to express herself. “I started to experiment with friends. Photography allowed me to bring in my other forms of expression, mainly movement. I started with a fix lens, so I had to constantly move around to get different angles.”
With an eye for fashion and previous experience modeling, Tessa brings a unique approach to her photography. “I’ve worked with my fair share of photographers and I know what feels good,” she says. “I want to create a collaborative environment, where I’m not giving too much direction to the models. I don’t like being told what to do in a lot of areas of my life so I want to give people the freedom to fully express themselves and to feel comfortable to do that. When the person feels heard and seen, we get to know each other, even if they are strangers.”
Tessa understands the importance of photographing someone and is grateful for that. “It’s nice have an emblem of a person,” she says, “a history of them, a photo archive - it’s beautiful to capture that.”
Being on a path of constant inspiration, I asked Tessa what she struggles with as an artist.
“I struggle with a sense of commitment, a routine, a clear path.,” she reveals. “I have a lot of passions and they exist simultaneously. I also love to play and have fun, to live life and be in moment. I’m tempted by a variety of things and it’s difficult for me to be consistent and have long term goals. My boyfriend Alex really helped me to focus my energy full force into something, like film photography. Now more than ever I have more direction and I’m challenging my energy in a productive way.”
I asked her what was next in her artistic journey, and she said, “I don’t know. I don’t want to lie to you and say I have it all figured out. At the ripe age of 23 I still don’t know which direction I’m heading in and what I want to do with my life. I’m just trying to be present in the moment and do what interests me and go from there.”
As I said goodbye to Tessa and walked back into my house, I thought about curiosity and the love of movement. Both traits go hand in hand; you can’t be curious if you want to remain stagnant.
I really resonate with Tessa on this. My own curiosity has led me to live in far away places and create friendships with people from all over the world. Everything in my life has been exciting and different. Just like Tessa, I’m a better artist for it, and more importantly, a better person.
“Traveling is building my movement language,” I recall Tessa saying. “It’s building my vocabulary, building my ability to empathize, to be a person in this world, to be a member of the world.”
